Ms Anne O'Connor:

A couple of points arise but the question is where to start. Deputy Brassil asked about the care pathway. The first place for any young person to go is to his or her general practitioner. A child or family who are struggling should go to their GP. We hope the GP would know which services are available locally. The problem we have - this was correctly pointed out by Deputy Brassil - is that teams are not fully staffed and we do not have enough teams. The child and adolescent mental health services operate at a little over 50% of what A Vision for Change set out. We are not going to have the gold-star CAMHS using that model.

This brings me to the fact that in Ireland we have a way of working that is tricky. Our policy says that every young person should have a named consultant. There may be a view that this ties us up in knots sometimes because the consultant has to be involved in every child's care. What happens if a child does not have a consultant? Other team members might be available. Our system is not similar to that in the UK, where it is not about having a named consultant. That is a challenge for us in terms of how we deliver our services.